Vilar studied Neoclassical sculpture at the Escuela de Nobles Artes in his native Barcelona. During two years in Rome, from 1834 to 1835, he was introduced to the aesthetic of Purism. Its adherents, called Nazarenes, sought to achieve the emotional and religious purity they felt late medieval and early Renaissance artists had achieved. Vilar himself turned increasingly to religious subject matter, abandoning the Classical mythology that dominated his early work.

When in 1846 Vilar arrived in Mexico, he had been appointed the new director of sculpture at the Academy of San Carlos. The academy was in decline after decades of political turmoil following Mexico’s declaration of independence from Spain in 1810. The Neoclassical work its students were producing seemed stagnant when compared with the latest work being produced in Europe. The directors of the academy recruited Vilar and painter Pelegrín Clavé, a fellow Catalonian who also worked in a Purist style, in the hopes of revitalizing the school. Together, Vilar and Clavé directed the school’s training toward a conservative, deeply religious art. Students began to produce emotionally intense biblical scenes that reflected their teachers’ orientation.

Despite his alignment with the Nazarenes, Vilar is best known for several works he produced in Mexico that have almost no religious content at all. Instead, he capitalized on Mexico’s search for a sense of national identity and made sculptures of figures such as Agustín Iturbide (1850), who helped Mexico achieve independence; Aztec emperor Montezuma (1850; Moctezuma); Tlahuicole (1851), a legendary warrior from Tlaxcala who defended his people against the Aztecs; and La Malinche (1852; La Malinche or Doña Marina), the first native woman of Mexico who converted to Christianity and who also served as Hernán Cortés’s translator.

Vilar’s sculptures of Montezuma, Tlahuicole, and La Malinche revived interest in indigenous subject matter among Mexican artists. Vilar portrays these figures, however, in a conservative manner reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures of athletes and emperors. La Malinche in particular reflects Vilar’s Purist tendencies; she wears a crucifix and seems caught in a moment of reverie. Vilar chose to represent indigenous figures who—to varying degrees—enabled Spain’s conquest of Mexico (Montezuma initially welcomed Cortés, the Tlaxcalans aided the Spaniards, and La Malinche translated for Cortés), thus ensuring the spread of Roman Catholicism. At the same time that Vilar’s sculptures celebrated Mexico’s national heroes, they reinforced a conservative religious vision of the country.